The day the flying circus came to Lymm

DURING the summers of 1933 and 1934 aviation pioneer Sir Alan Cobham toured the country with a team of around 10 daredevil pilots and stuntmen and women including wing-walkers.

There were very few aerodromes in those early days of flying so the team planned a tour that used any venue with a large open tract of level ground near a conurbation, which is why the flying circus came to Lymm on April 21, 1934.

The Warrington Guardian was involved in promoting this unique event not just by advertising it but also by publishing a competition to guess the flying height of a plane that was sent over a few days earlier.

The winner would receive a fee flight on the day.

The whole show included aerobatics, wing-walking, passenger flights, parachute jumps and most dangerous of all the snatching of a handkerchief for the gorund with the wing-tip of a plane.

Transport historians Alan Williams and Alan Taylor are now on the hunt for any local people who have memories of the spectacle.

"We have already identified one lady living in Altrincham who was six at the time and who remembers the excitement and novelty of the whole occasion."

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If you have any information please call Alan Williams on 754080 or e-mail lymmtransport@gmail.com To commemorate the 1934 event there will be bi-plane flypast at Lymm Historic Transport Day on June 29 (lymmtransport.org.uk) featuring at least one aircraft of the time and of a type that may have been used in the original display.

This will be just be one feature of a show that will have hundreds of classic vehicles of all types with the opportunity to step back in time and travel by vintage bus or boat.

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